


Dean the Laundromat Slayer

by angeltrap



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Family, Gen, Humor, Silly Dean
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-04
Updated: 2017-02-04
Packaged: 2018-09-21 22:55:19
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,855
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9570437
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/angeltrap/pseuds/angeltrap
Summary: A silly pointless ficlet brought to you by an abysmal day several years ago on which I was supposed to do laundry and Laundromat disagreed. Also quite possibly one Buffy marathon too many. As such, Dean finds himself on laundry duty, and Laundromat disagrees.Originally written and published on LJ April 2012.





	

_Rock_ , Dean thought. _It'll be rock, next time. Never picking scissors again._

But then, because Sam was a sneaky little bitch, he'd probably throw in a paper, and what the hell was with that, anyway, paper beating a rock by, what, wrapping around it? Whatever the creators of this game had been smoking, Dean wanted it too, because sure, the alternative hadn't been that great, either, but research beat this at least. He _loathed_ research, but God help him, he would have agreed to doing all the research for a _year_ and freaking marrying a librarian (a hot one) had there been even the slightest chance that it might help him out of his current predicament.

He was on laundry duty.

Well, according to teachers and police officers and Federal agents and the Host of Heaven, he'd had 'I rebel, disobey and vandalize wherever I go' stamped on his forehead since he'd been four, but the ugly truth was that Dean Winchester was an old-fashioned traditionalist. He liked his music around his own age and his cars around the age of his parents. He strongly believed that little brothers were supposed to stay little and that any and all size differences to the benefit of the little brother were mere optical illusions. He liked his porn in printed and/or VHS form, not the flashy things that made Sam's laptop go funny and Sam himself decidedly not-funny. And CD's versus cassettes? Yeah, not even going there.

Sometimes he wondered if this made him one of those grandpas who refused to move from their cottages to allow a highway to be built in its place, but he dismissed the idea as ridiculous, because highways he actually _did_ like.

The problem was, he was a late 20th century guy in a 21st century environment, and things that had been coin-operated when he'd been younger were now almost invariably cell phone-bound. This included a regrettable amount of the laundromats he'd come across recently.

And it wasn't just that Dean liked using cash for its anonymity; no, it was because more often than not, it took a freaking rocket scientist to work out the instructions of those things.

Because Sam was still a little miffed about the fact that everything white he owned had mysteriously turned pink the last time Dean had done this (and it hadn't been his fault, dammit, he hadn't noticed the stupid red sock someone had left in the machine!), he made a special effort to struggle through the instructions.

An extract from _The Hunter's Guide to Laundromats_ , by D. M. Winchester:

 

_A. Sort by color: dark-colored clothes here. Colorful clothes_ (two shirts and one odd sock) _here. White ones (_ dress shirts, mostly, and Sam had promised excruciating pain, slashed tires and Britney Spears and Enrique Inglesias at top volume for the next four states if they came back pink) _there._

 

_B. Sort by material: easy enough, but damn it if reading through all the tiny flags in every single article of clothing wasn't time-consuming._ (What the hell did they need so many materials for, anyway? Cotton, leather and denim he got, everything beyond that was unnecessary, coquettish and probably dangerous.)

 

_C. Sort by – and okay, he was done sorting, this had to be enough._

The next part he was good at: stuffing clothes into washing machines. Finding the right place for the detergent wasn't as easy, but eventually he decided on the one that looked like it had been used for the very same purpose before. Shutting the lid was a piece of cake.

There – he'd successfully amassed his troops, explained his strategy to his lieutenants, given them an inspiring prep talk, and his men (or clothes) had infiltrated the enemy system (or washing machines). It was time to cut off the head of the snake.

 

_D. Call the operator. Buttons will start to flash. Push the buttons for the machines you want to use. Select a program. Press 'start'. Celebrate success._

No army could help him here; he'd have to face the calling machine alone. His troops couldn't move before he defeated the enemy commander, the Faceless, Toneless Automated Voice – they were counting on him.

Dean thought about all the monsters he'd faced and defeated, thought about poor Sammy waiting for clean clothes to wear (or, if he was entirely honest, about one really big, really bossy Sammy blaming Dean for borrowing his clothes every time there was a chance they'd get rolled in dirt and mud and slime on a hunt, which had only happened once, anyway), thought about all the forces of Heaven and Hell they'd managed to avoid and hide from, and took a deep breath. He could do this.

Quickly, before he could change his mind, he punched in the number and hit 'call'.

“ _This machine is temporarily out of order. Please try again later_.”

Dean swallowed. “You're kidding me.”

He tried again.

“ _This machine is temporarily out of order. Please try again later._ ”

“Seriously?”

“ _This machine is temporarily out of order. Please try again later._ ”

“Oh come on!”

:::

Sometimes Sam felt great sympathy for people with small kids. It had to be, he reflected, like living with Dean, except that Dean was far more likely to go running with scissors than little kids. You had to get him out of the way if you wanted to get any work done, but when he was out of the way, you got absolutely no work done because you kept worrying about what he might be up to while he was out of sight.

So he thought his mild case of frantic climbing on the walls, panicked swearing and getting prepared to dash after his idiot brother, armed to teeth and ready to start smiting, Castiel Style, was entirely justified when Dean had been gone for two hours and his phone kept beeping busy every time Sam called.

He was almost out the door when it occurred to him that smiting Castiel Style was probably easier with some actual Castiel involved, and that carrying a shotgun in one hand and a machete in another wouldn't win him many friends in bright daylight.

Yeah, okay, so he'd been told before that they tended to overreact first and overthink later when it came to missing brothers, but hey, most of those times they'd saved each others' lives, right? Still, it was probably best to call for reinforcements.

“Castiel?” he called, staring at the ceiling. “Care to come down for a bit? Dean's miss – ”

“Hello, Sam.”

“ – ing.” Sam blinked. Castiel was standing in front of him. “That was fast.”

The angel had the grace ( _oh, ha ha_ ) to flush a little. “You said Dean was missing?”

“No, I said 'Dean' and you were here. _Then_ I said he's missing.” And okay, well, that looked a lot like what Dean liked to call Castiel's Smiting Face, so a topic change was probably in order. “He went hunting for a laundromat over two hours ago and doesn't answer his phone.”

Castiel frowned. “You sent your brother to face this creature alone? Was he properly armed?”

Sam was just about to open and close his mouth like a fish to express his utter bafflement at the angel's lack of cultural understanding, when suddenly the door behind him opened and the missing person in question wandered in, looking for all the world like he'd won the bags slung over his shoulder in a bloody battle.

“Dean!” Castiel announced, possibly just in case that Sam hadn't noticed him yet, or perhaps had forgotten his name. “Are you alright? We were just about to start looking for you. Sam said you'd gone to slay some monster I had never even heard about.”

“And slay it I did, Cas!” Dean declared with a grin. His hair was sticking out in every direction, his clothes were dusty and there was something black smeared across his cheek – in fact, he looked like he'd been working on the Impala and been nowhere near a place that was supposed to make things cleaner. “In every generation there is a chosen one, and he alone will stand against the laundromats and forces of darkness! He is the Slayer! Sam, you can be my Willow,” he added as he threw the bags to his brother.

Sam caught one bag and half of the other; the clothes inside the latter one spilled to the floor. He frowned as he crouched to pick them up. “ _Cas_ can be your Willow, I'm not a socially awkward gay nerd. I can be the tall guy.”

“I see you didn't deny being a girl, though,” Dean quipped.

“I don't understand what being a tree has to do with anything, but if it's helpful, I don't mind,” Castiel accepted.

Sam snorted a little at the idea, took a closer look at the clothes in his hands and forgot all about the previous conversation. “ _Dean_ ,” he said, very evenly and calmly. “I'm afraid you've misunderstood the concept of washing clothes. These are still dirty.”

Dean blinked and then grinned again. “What? Oh, yeah, we need to find another place in the next town.”

Sam unzipped the other bag as well and hurriedly zipped it back up when his nose caught a whiff of the smell. “You spent two hours not getting any laundry done? What'd you do, read porn all the time? And why didn't you answer your phone?”

“I,” Dean began, and suddenly stopped with a suspiciously guilty look on his face like he'd just realized that whatever he had done probably wouldn't get the 'Sammy Approves!' badge. “Uh.”

“ _Dean_.”

“I... may have shot the machine. A little.” Dean did his best innocent kid impression. “And there's a tiny little possibility that I, uh, sort of ripped one of the lids off its hinges because it wouldn't open and the clothes were already inside. Possibly kicked it a little, too.”

Castiel was utterly floored. “I'm sure it was self-defense,” the angel said, turning imploring eyes to Sam. “And this creature had all your clothes. He had to do something.”

“Exactly!” Dean agreed eagerly. “It was pure self-defense! And in no way vandalism, no matter what the police say.”

“The _police_?” Sam hissed and could have slapped himself. Someone hears gunshots coming from a laundromat, of course they're gonna call the police. He could only hope no one had been able to tell them where Dean had gone...

“Um, yeah. About that.” Dean flashed a nervous little grin. “You're right, you know, the clothes are still dirty. We should probably move on to that laundromat in the next town pretty soon.”

“Yes,” Castiel supported him, “We should move quickly to prevent the infestation from spreading.”

Sam sighed. That thing about panicking and running around when you didn't hear from Dean in two hours being justified? Forget it. Panicking, running in the opposite direction, changing your name and claiming to be an only child, now that was the right way to act in that situation.

“Fine,” he muttered, glaring at his brother as he started speed-packing. “But don't think this gets you off laundry duty.”


End file.
